Assembly rejects Strickland's school religious speech proposal

SACRAMENTO — An Assembly panel on Tuesday rejected a proposal by Ventura County Assemblywoman Audra Strickland that she said would have protected the rights of high school students to freely express their religious beliefs at school events and in classroom assignments.

The measure, modeled after a 2007 Texas law, would have allowed school officials to select students based upon neutral criteria — including the student body president, captain of the football team and prom queen — to speak at school-sponsored events such as assemblies, sports contests and graduations. The bill would have given them license at such events to publicly pray or otherwise espouse religious beliefs.

In addition, AB 974 would have expressly prohibited teachers from downgrading students who discussed religious viewpoints in essays or homework assignments, or used religious themes in art projects.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee rejected the bill on a party-line vote, with six Democrats opposed and three Republicans in support.

Opponents said they believe the courts over the years have established careful guidelines to preserve the religious freedom of students without institutionally favoring one religion over another or subjecting students with minority religious beliefs to harassment or discomfort.

The bill sought to create a “limited public forum” by designating speakers to make remarks at the opening of every school day, at football games and designated athletic events, and other events such as pep rallies and assemblies. At each such event, students who hold “positions of honor” would be eligible to speak.

The legal theory behind the Texas law is that those students, selected without regard for their religious beliefs, would be entitled in such a forum to offer prayers or make other religious comments if the remarks were generally in keeping with the spirit of the event.

A committee analysis of the bill, however, said such an arrangement would not allow schools to skirt the legal prohibition on school-sponsored prayer. The analysis notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that delivery of a religious message over a school’s public address system, under school supervision and pursuant to school policy, is not protected private speech but rather a violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition on the government establishment of a religion.

Valerie Small Navarro, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said she believes there is a fundamental difference between a student’s protected private speech and a student making a morning announcement over a school’s public address system that says, “ ‘Let’s all praise Allah this morning,’ or ‘Let’s all let Jesus into our lives this morning.’ ”

Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank, said the measure would have had a chilling effect on teachers when grading student work that included religious expressions. If a teacher marked down a paper because it was unresponsive to the assignment, he or she would have risked civil court action and a minimum fine of $4,000.

“The inevitable result is that there would be litigation over how teachers teach,” Krekorian said.

The bill would have allowed students and their parents to take religious discrimination complaints directly to court without having to go through school district administrative processes.

Strickland, R-Moorpark, argued the bill was necessary to strengthen “ineffective protection of students’ free-speech rights.” She cited instances around the state where students were improperly denied the right to form a Bible club at school or told they could make no mention of Christmas.

“The First Amendment does not turn schools into a religion-free zone,” Strickland said.

Kevin Snider, an attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute, a nonprofit legal defense organization that specializes in religious freedom and parental rights, said school officials in California have shown they do not understand the religious free speech protections that have been established by court decisions.

He argued that a law clarifying state policy was necessary because of “legal confusion over what is public speech and what is private speech” and because school board members and administrators have shown “significant indifference” to protecting students’ religious expression.

The measure was opposed by California Church IMPACT, which represents 21 mainstream Protestant denominations.

In a letter to the committee, Church IMPACT officials contended the measure was “a thinly disguised effort to promote one type of faith expression.”